Looking to the past: From ancient history to retro references, historical influences in design in the 2023 D&AD Awards

What does a resurgence of hand-crafting techniques, and turning to pre-computer-age influences say about design’s relationship with the march towards an AI future? Sujata Burman, Design Writer and Editor at London Design Festival, explores what this year’s D&AD Award-winning work has to say about wider cultural shifts.

It comes as no surprise that the revival of historic craft seems to be moving at the same pace as the adoption of AI. While humankind is trying to understand the invisible – questioning whether ChatGPT will design our future or whether Midjourney will take our jobs – past techniques and the physicality of making is keeping us grounded. Can we learn from heritage methods to future-proof our planet? Can looking at retro styles through the lens of modern design be a way of understanding the times we are living in? Designing today is more about problem-solving than reinventing, so perhaps the past has more answers than we may think.

“We find that the most inspiring designs always exist on the edge of tradition and modernity,” says Hong Kong-based Oddity Studio, D&AD winner for its thoughtful packaging design for .Oddity Fragrance. Designed as artefacts, the bottles have handcrafted wooden lids that were influenced by traditional Japanese artforms kintsugi, wabi-sabi and ikebana. “While none of these are directly connected to wood or epoxy resin, they share the same concept of preserving the beauty of nature and the imperfections of the material,” the team explained of its inspirations. Oddity’s designs join a cohort of D&AD Awards 2023 champions representing craft, historic movements and moments. “The past continues to speak to the present,” says Lebanese Syrian graphic designer Ranim Al Halaky about her typographic visual installation Conversations Through Time. The steel structure intertwines phrases collected from local people in Saudi Arabia’s ancient city Al-'Ula to see “historical poetry intersect with the community's words and phrases.”

“Craft is an antidote to digital media,” said Jonathan Anderson, creative director of Spanish luxury house Loewe and craft aficionado, in an interview with The Guardian in 2018. Anderson inaugurated The LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize in 2016: one of the more recent initiatives giving craft a modern seal of approval. Take one look at the prize’s 2023 shortlist to see Dominique Zinkpè’s wood and acrylic figurines that draw on Yoruba beliefs, Jaiik Lee’s vessels inspired by a traditional Korean moon jar and Moe Watanabe’s walnut bark box that recalls the ancient Japanese tradition of Ikebana vase making and more. There is a constant questioning of what craft means. Is it a skill? Can it be removed from the past? The Loewe Craft Prize is a new expression of craft for the next generation.

Drawing on historic craft influences continues in exhibitions that fill the creative calendar today. The traditional weaving of Al Sadu, inscribed onto UNESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding in 2011, was the starting point for two showcases at London Design Biennale 2023. Both the Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia pavilions told the story of this skill practised by Bedouin women in the United Arab Emirates through a design lens. Al Sadu has many uses, but the most significant are structures known as bait al shaar, or Bedouin tents, used as communal living spaces and social spaces for family and visitors. For the showcases, the Saudi installation introduced a large interactive loom for guests to experience the craft themselves, while Abu Dhabi was an immersive, multi-sensory breakdown of Al Sadu tools and methods.

Shifting perspectives around consumerism and the environment is a driving force for looking back at historic ways of designing and living. Basketmaker and master craftsperson Annemarie O’Sullivan is one of many creatives who are slowing the pace, creating small batches and thinking locally. She grows 20 varieties of willow near her studio in Sussex to create lighting, baskets, installations and more. Conscious, local making powers the initiative Atelier100 that launched in 2022, too. The think tank champions independent creatives who have created a product within 100km of Central London, from sourcing materials to the workshop where it’s created. Realised by H&M and Ingka Group – the largest IKEA franchisee – the platform encourages makers to work hyperlocally, which London-based ceramicist Alison Cooke did by using clay from historic sites for her vessels. Intrigued by the layers of history beneath us, Cooke used clay that is 54 million years old from 26 metres under the River Thames which was excavated during the building of London's supersewer. These historic references are embedded in the shape of her designs too, alluding to the underground networks that make up the city.

While traditional craft continues to take space in the contemporary design sphere, it has also shifted into the public zeitgeist. From hobbies like knitting taken up during the pandemic, and TV shows like The Great Pottery Throw Down and Blown Away, to TikTok making trends, it’s clear the craft cult is here to stay. This revival is translating to even younger audiences. Publication All Weaves In My Heart: Decoding Patterns of Hakka and Punti’s Band Weaving, shortlisted in D&AD Awards 2023, is focused on telling stories of Fai tai, the traditional craft of Hong Kong Hakka and Weitou women, to younger generations. As told by old female weavers, the book shares skills of the colourful Fai Tai to engage and connect the past and future.

In the UK, Crafts Council's 2022 Craft School: Yinka’s Challenge was a national schools competition set by designer Yinka Ilori that encouraged traditional craft thinking among the talents of tomorrow. Ilori himself is an artist who reflects on his Nigerian heritage and traditions within his vibrant pieces. In Parables of Happiness, his 2022 solo exhibition at the Design Museum, London, his work came together to tell stories of this heritage. From the African wax prints worn by past generations of his family which inform technicolour patterns, to the centuries-old Nigerian parables taught to him at a young age, Ilori’s practice is an example of how historic references can resonate far and wide in contemporary culture today. At London Design Festival 2021, the artist painted the streets of Tottenham Court Road with patterns derived from his past, and his parable-inspired murals citing ‘Love always wins’ and ‘The future of humankind is in our hands’ were plastered across neighbourhoods in London during the pandemic, offering messages of hope.

The 1967 Summer of Love movement – centred in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood – was inspiration for UND, designer Jeppe Pendrup’s quick uppercase-only display typeface for Danish fashion brand Baum und Pferdgarten, shortlisted in D&AD Awards 2023. As per the fashion brand’s autumn/winter 2020 collection, which paid homage to the late 1960s and 1970s, Pendrup says he took “a dive deep into the countercultural movement that pushed a utopian social paradigm of love, solidarity and unity and came to impact everything from fashion to politics, art, music and design.” Like many of the D&AD Awards shortlisted projects, Pendrup’s work shows how we can learn from the past – which is essentially the most important aspect when drawing from tradition. Can there really be design solutions in history that would benefit our future? Maybe they are already here, as Pendrup puts it: “Everything we do is based on ingredients of the past.”